President Biden was interviewed as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents by Special Counsel Robert Hur, the White House counsel’s office said.

The interview was voluntary and concluded Monday, White House Counsel’s Office spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News.

‘The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday,’ he said. 

The investigation is being led by Hur, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the probe.

‘As we have said from the beginning, the President and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation,’ Sams said. 

‘We would refer other questions to the Justice Department at this time,’ he added. 

The interview played out as war broke out in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Biden was speaking with foreign leaders about the matter and meeting with his national security team. 

The probe stems from a batch of records from President Biden’s time as vice president, including a ‘small number of documents with classified markings,’ that were discovered at the Penn Biden Center by the president’s personal attorneys on Nov. 2, 2022. 

The documents were found in a locked closet while preparing to vacate office space at the center, which the president used from mid-2017 until he began the 2020 campaign. The National Archives were notified of the finding and took possession of the documents on Nov. 3, 2022, Sauber said. 

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team negotiated with lawyers for then-President Donald Trump for an interview but Trump never sat for one. His lawyers instead submitted answers to written questions.

President George W. Bush sat for a 70-minute interview as part of an investigation into the leak of the identity of a CIA operative. President Bill Clinton in 1998 underwent more than four hours of questioning from independent counsel Kenneth Starr before a federal grand jury.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

In an instant, the conversation in the race for the White House was altered as Hamas militants, supported by Iran, on Saturday launched the deadliest attack on Israel in decades. 

And the surprise assault on Israel during the early morning hours of a major Jewish holiday immediately elevated foreign policy – which was one of many leading issues in the presidential race – to the center of the campaign spotlight.

Longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns, emphasized that ‘the tragic events in Israel have shifted the political discussion in the United States to foreign policy.’

Former President Donald Trump, in a campaign appearance Monday in New Hampshire, took aim at his successor in the White House, arguing that ‘today we have an all-out war in Israel, and it’s going to spread very quickly. What a difference a president makes.’

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration and is challenging the former president for the 2024 presidential nomination, told Fox News in an interview in Iowa that ‘our message to Hamas is, your days are numbered. Your days are numbered because we are not going to allow you to terrorize Israelis, Americans or anyone anymore. This terror is coming to an end.’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a statement, emphasized that ‘we must not only stand with Israel, but we must support them as they hunt down and eradicate these barbarians.’

The presidential campaign for Sen. Tim Scott said that the South Carolina lawmaker will head to a well-known conservative think tank in the nation’s capital Tuesday to deliver a speech ‘about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, wiping Hamas off the map.’

On Wednesday, GOP White House contender and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will visit the same think tank – the Hudson Institute – to lay out what his advisers say is a ‘comprehensive foreign policy vision that will make America safer’ in the wake of the attack on Israel.

President Biden, pointing to what he called an ‘appalling terrorist assault against Israel’ that left over 900 Israelis dead and more than 2,000 injured, said in a statement Monday that ‘in this moment of heartbreak, the American people stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israelis.’

The assault by Hamas, in which at least 11 Americans in Israel were also killed, ignited a massive counterattack, which has left around 700 Palestinians dead and nearly 3,000 injured in the Gaza Strip.

Biden reiterated that ‘the United States and the State of Israel are inseparable partners’ and that Washington ‘will continue to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and its people.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s had his differences in the past with Biden, emphasized on Monday that ‘I want to thank President Biden for his unequivocal support,’ but his praise for Biden hasn’t stopped the Republican presidential candidates from blaming the president for the Hamas attack.

The criticism of the president comes from a recent $6 billion transfer to Iran, a complex prisoner swap deal announced by the Biden administration in September. Roughly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that were being held in South Korea were transferred to an account in Doha, Qatar, as part of the deal to free five Americans being held hostage in Iran.

The Biden administration has pushed back on GOP criticism by insisting that none of the funds transferred have been spent to date, but Republicans claim that the deal – and the funds – helped fuel the Hamas assault on Israel.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has emphasized that Tehran would spend the money ‘wherever we need it,’ to which the Biden administration responded it could freeze the assets again if necessary.

DeSantis claimed that Hamas was ’empowered by Joe Biden’s appeasement of Iran’ while Scott alleged the attack was ‘the Biden $6 billion ransom payment at work.’

Former Vice President Mike Pence blamed Biden, arguing that the current administration ‘projects weakness on the world stage.’ 

And Trump, who’s the commanding frontrunner for the GOP nomination as he runs for the White House a third straight time, charged Monday in New Hampshire that ‘Joe Biden betrayed Israel.’

The Biden 2024 re-election campaign fired back at Trump.

‘With each and every lie, Donald Trump further proves he is too dangerous to lead the United States on the world stage. The generals and other military leaders who served under Trump—those in a position to know—have repeatedly said he made our country less safe, not more,’ Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign National Co-Chair and military veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said in a statement. 

Williams, the Republican strategist, said that the elevation of foreign policy ‘works well for Trump’ in the GOP nomination race. 

Pointing to Trump’s four years in the White House, Williams said ‘he’s the only Republican candidate that’s had that level of foreign policy experience, and he has a record to point to, where he can say that the way he was doing it in office was better than Biden.’

Pence and Haley are also spotlighting their chops on the world stage.

Besides criticizing Biden, Pence took aim at his rivals this past weekend in stating that ‘voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis that I believe have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.’

Williams emphasized that ‘if you have foreign policy experience, this issue helps you.’

But he also said, ‘I don’t think it necessarily sets Haley and Pence apart from Trump, because they were all in the same administration, but Trump gets to take credit for what he did in his administration.’

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is taking a firm stance on supporting Israel in its defense against Hamas militant terrorist attacks and called for the U.S. to send weapons to the nation in a recent letter sent to President Biden.

The Republican senator slammed the administration’s Office of Palestinian Affairs for initially calling for ‘all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks’ in a now-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

‘So far, the administration’s response has been far weaker than Israel — a shining beacon of democracy and our most important ally in the Middle East — deserves,’ Blackburn wrote.

Blackburn urged the federal government to ‘provide all weapons and munitions necessary.’ 

FAMILIES OF ISRAELIS FEARED KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS TERRORISTS SPEAK OUT 

‘The failures of this administration on the world stage have no doubt emboldened those who would wish America and our allies harm,’ she wrote.  

After the attacks on Saturday, Biden said to reporters, ‘The United States stands with Israel’ and that the government would support them in any way in their defense.

With the upper chamber on official recess until next week and the House slated to vote in a new speaker in the coming weeks, Blackburn said in the meantime the Senate needs to keep pressure on the administration.

‘During this week while not in D.C., what we should do is support this letter that will encourage the administration to rescind this deal of $6 billion,’ Blackburn told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘You cannot participate in this kind of attack and then be rewarded for those actions.’

LIVE UPDATES: HAMAS ATTACKS ON ISRAEL 

‘There are some things that we should be doing to bolster the admin to be more definitive in their support of Israel,’ Blackburn said. ‘And for [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken to try to say the release of the $6 billion had nothing to do with this — what we do know is that when you take these actions that seem to be appeasing actions, it leads to the perception of weakness, and when you have that perception of weakness, it emboldens your enemies.’

The $6 billion deal in exchange for American prisoners captive in Iran, which was reached last month, allowed the transfer of Iran’s frozen assets held in a South Korean bank to accounts in Qatar. Blinken said the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes and the U.S. will have oversight as to how and when the funds are used. 

However, Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that they had Iran’s support for the attacks, which began Saturday. A bombshell Wall Street Journal report Sunday said Hamas and Hezbollah helped Iran plan the attack.

House Republicans walked out of a nearly three-hour conference meeting on Monday night united over a sense of urgency in needing to pick a new speaker — and little else.

One of the most prominent debates to surface, less than 72 hours before the Republicans are set to gather behind closed doors for their speaker election, is whether to raise the threshold needed to put a candidate on the House floor.

‘I don’t think we ought to be changing rules in the middle of an election. I just don’t think that’s wise. I also think there is some wisdom of having members have their surnames called out, and have to…declare it to everybody,’ said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who is backing Majority Leader Steve Scalise for Speaker. ‘Secret ballot accomplishes very little, you know, other than gives you an opportunity to freely express yourself without being made known.’

But Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., leader of the pragmatic Main Street Caucus, said he was leaning in favor of the change but had not made up his mind. ‘If it’s going to take us four days to get to 218, I think everybody should agree that burning that time on the floor is suboptimal.’ Johnson has not publicly said who he will support yet.

House Republicans are set to gather on Wednesday morning to elect their candidate for speaker via secret ballot. Fox News Digital was told that House GOP leaders are weighing an amendment to the current House rules that would temporarily raise the threshold needed to win from a simple majority to 217 or 218 votes. 

Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was elected in a full House vote after 15 public rounds across three days after being selected behind closed-doors via simple majority of the House GOP. He was removed last week by eight members of his own party and House Democrats.

Multiple lawmakers indicated to Fox News Digital after their closed-door Monday meeting that the vote on raising that threshold was expected before the closed-door election. 

Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern suggested he was learning in favor of the rule. Hern argued that the unfolding crisis in the Middle East was all the more reason for Congress to appear united in moving forward.

‘The American people are pretty weary right now on chaos, if you will. I don’t know that it’s healthy for the American morale to see chaos in the Middle East, chaos in Israel, and then chaos here,’ he said. 

McCarthy ally Rep. John James, R-Mich., said he signed onto a GOP letter requesting the rule change to ‘very quickly get back to things that most Americans are concerned with.’

‘We need to secure our border, we need to address our debt, we need to address our spending – and in order to do that, we have to make sure that before we go to the floor, we have enough votes to have a Republican Speaker,’ he said.

But Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who also supported McCarthy as speaker, said lawmakers shouldn’t need to change conference rules to put on a united public front. 

‘We did not always go in conference with person who won the election, but I never dreamed of not voting for that person on the floor. No matter how strongly I disagreed with them, the conference made the decision and they deserve my support to be speaker. We should get back to that,’ he said.

His fellow freshman Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., did not rule out the idea but suggested putting a seven-day limit on the closed-door vote before forcing it onto the floor.

‘It’ll probably lend itself to some unity in the conference, but I think it’s also prudent to have some sort of escape hatch if that strategy doesn’t result in a bonafide speaker,’ LaLota said.

Meanwhile Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, who is backing Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for speaker, also threw into the mix a suggestion to give lawmakers an extra week before voting for speaker.

‘I don’t think we’re gonna get a speaker this week at all,’ Miller said. 

The United Arab Emirates warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to refrain from intervening in the Israel-Hamas war or allow attacks on Israel from Syrian soil. 

Axios reported the news first, citing two UAE sources briefed on the matter. 

Foreign leaders outside Israel are concerned the war could spill into neighboring Lebanon or escalate into a regional conflict, the news outlet said. 

Officials from the UAE sent their messages to high-level Syrian officials and briefed the Biden administration about their communication with the Syrians, according to the two sources. Following the attacks on Israel by Hamas, the UAE foreign ministry condemned the fighting. 

‘Civilians on both sides must always have full protection under international humanitarian law and must never be a target of conflict,’ the ministry said. 

The UAE in 2020 became the first Gulf nation to normalize relations with Israel. 

Syria is currently still involved in a civil war. Most of Southern Syria is controlled by al-Assad’s government, which has seen support from Russia and Iran.  

On Monday, leaders from the United States, Germany, Britain, France and Italy issued a joint statement condemning the attacks on Israel by Hamas. 

‘In recent days, the world has watched in horror as Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes, slaughtered over 200 young people enjoying a music festival, and kidnapped elderly women, children, and entire families, who are now being held as hostages,’ said the statement by President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

‘Over the coming days, we will remain united and coordinated, together as allies, and as common friends of Israel, to ensure Israel is able to defend itself, and to ultimately set the conditions for a peaceful and integrated Middle East region,’ the statement said. 

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes following attacks in which Hamas terrorist fighters infiltrated Israel and killed and kidnapped civilians and some military personnel. 

In addition, Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon, has fired rockets into Israel. 

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday held a moment of silence in memory of the ‘innocent lives’ lost in the ‘occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere,’ while failing to honor those who died in Israel from attacks by Hamas.

Ambassador Zaman Mehdi, the deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the U.N. in Geneva was seen in a post by the U.N. on X, formerly known as Twitter, speaking to members of the Human Rights Council just before a moment of silence.

‘On behalf of the IOC member states, we express our deep concerns over the loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere,’ Mehdi said. ‘Regrettably, this huge loss of lives and unabated violence is a sad reminder of more than seven decades of illegal foreign occupation, aggression and disrespect for the international law, including UNESCO resolutions.’

He went on to say the 16 years of what he termed illegal blockage of Gaza continued to raise questions over the applicability of international law and fundamental freedoms of the innocent civilian population. As a result, efforts to normalize the area is ‘breeding violence,’ Mehdi said.

‘In this context, the so-called declaration of war and attacks on civilian population and their properties is deeply distressing,’ he said. ‘We remain concerned about the human cost of the escalating situation.’

A video of the moment of silence showed all members of the Human Rights Council standing, despite omitting the innocent lives of those lost in Israel.

U.S. Permanent Representative to the Human Rights Council Michèle Taylor also requested a moment of silence on Monday, asking to commemorate the lives of people killed in the Hamas attack on Israel.

Taylor said, with a ‘heavy heart,’ that the calamity on Oct. 7, 2023, and the days since resulted in the deaths of ‘hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilian lives lost,’ and the count continues to go up.

She also said thousands were injured and more than a hundred men, women, children, people with disabilities and elderly individuals were kidnapped.

‘The United States unequivocally condemns these heinous acts of terrorism. We extend our deepest condolences to the families affected and express our solidarity with the people and government of Israel in these trying times,’ Taylor said before requesting a moment of silence from the council. ‘As we stand in silence, let us reaffirm our collective commitment to promoting peace, justice, and human rights across the globe, and let our silence resound as a united stand against terrorism and violence.’

Likewise, all members of the council stood to honor the lives lost.

Andrea Vacchiano of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.

Israel’s counteroffensive into Gaza extended through the night, including airstrikes in Gaza City, home to Hamas’ centers of government.

Israeli warplanes pounded downtown Gaza City with relentless bombardments into early Tuesday, after Israel’s prime minister vowed retaliation against the Islamic militant group that would ‘reverberate for generations.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a nationally televised address, where he said: ‘We have only started striking Hamas.’

He added: ‘What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.’

Israel has, so far, issued warnings to civilians in areas of Gaza City and others where they intend to strike. The warnings have given civilians moments to evacuate so as to reduce the number of civilian deaths.

Hamas has threatened to start executing captured Israelis if strikes targeted civilians without warning. Israel said that Hamas is holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage in Gaza.

The war is only expected to escalate as Israel could launch a ground invasion to eradicate Hamas from Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, Israel’s military said it regained effective control over areas near the Gaza Strip border with Israel, which was breached over the weekend in Saturday’s surprise attack.

The Israeli military also said it recovered the bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas militants on Israeli territory.

The four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, after Hamas terrorists invaded the Gaza-Israel border and attacked towns and villages. 

Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE — Iraq’s top judge, Faiq Zidan, who seeks the arrest of former President Donald Trump, confirmed through his spokesperson to Fox News Digital that he has indeed been invited to Washington, D.C. Fox News Digital first broke the story that Zidan had been invited to Washington.

There had been confusion about the controversial judge’s visit to Washington, D.C., when it was revealed that he was to meet with officials at the Department of Justice. A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital last week, ‘The Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan is going to be hosted by the Department of Justice, so we defer to the DOJ to discuss their meetings. We engage with a wide range of counterparts in Iraq, and we value engaging the Iraqi judiciary. The DOJ meets regularly with foreign judicial leaders.’

Yet conflicting with the State Department spokesperson’s statement, a source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital last Thursday that ‘Zidan will not be meeting with any DOJ officials.’

On Monday, Zidan’s spokesperson texted Fox News Digital on the WhatsApp messaging service, writing, ‘His visit to Washington was postponed due to the current war conditions. When he visits Washington, he will hold a meeting with you to clarify many matters that are not clear to American public opinion.’

Fox News Digital called Zidan’s spokesperson before publication of its first article on his planned visit. She declined to comment on the telephone or via WhatsApp. After Fox News Digital sent the Iraqi spokesperson its published story, she issued the statement that the war in Israel was preventing Zidan from traveling to Washington.

According to a source familiar with Zidan’s invitation to the DOJ, the judge told many U.S. officials that the DOJ invited him to Washington, D.C.

In January, Zidan said that Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council had filed an arrest warrant for Trump with regard to the U.S. targeted killing of Iranian Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, who reportedly oversaw the murders of more than 600 American military personnel in the Mideast.

According to an article on the website of U.S.-sanctioned Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the Iraqi judge said during a meeting earlier this year with the Raisi, ‘One of the most important examples of judicial cooperation between the two neighboring and brotherly countries is the trial of all those who participated in the terrorist crime of martyring the commanders of fighting against terrorism.’

Zidan’s reported statement was said in a discussion on pursuing ‘justice for the martyrs Soleimani, al-Muhandis.’

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was the head of the pro-Iran Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in 2020. The U.S. military killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis with a lethal drone strike  near Baghdad International Airport.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser for the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital, ‘The Justice Department should be focused on protecting Americans targeted by IRGC assassinations and kidnapping plots, not hosting the IRGC’s man in Baghdad who wants to prosecute Americans for killing terrorists. Zidan should not be allowed in America.’

Michael Knights, a fellow of the Washington Institute who has written about Zidan, told Fox News Digital that ‘Zidan issued one order after another that has disadvantaged opponents of Iranian militias.’

Knights said that after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Soleimani and al-Muhandis ‘were the architects of moving Zidan up through the judicial system. He was running counterterrorism courts so that none of Iran’s friends got prosecuted under Iraqi law.’

The lack of modern judicial norms in Iraq was noted by Knights, who said Zidan ‘is a supreme court judge who can hire and fire other judges. Iraq has one supreme court judge. He is as powerful as the prime minister of Iraq. He is unelected, installed by Iran and has no term limit.’

Few people have done more to destroy the American middle class than Janet Yellen. Both in her former capacity as Federal Reserve chair and now as secretary of the Treasury, she has been woefully disconnected from everyday Americans and their current financial plight.

This arrogant detachment allowed her to recently declare that she sees no sign of a recession. Meanwhile, half of Americans feel like we’re already in one. That’s because their family finances have been devastated by the policies Yellen has helped to implement over the last 20 years, while she and her fellow elites have done quite well, being immune from the ramifications of their own actions.

The proof is in the numbers: While the top 20% of households still have about $500 billion of pandemic-era excess savings, everyone else has run out of money. The bottom 20% of households have not only depleted their excess savings, but also their savings that existed before the pandemic. Now, many American homes are falling into debt.

Credit card debt in particular has exploded over the last three years, hitting $1 trillion for the first time as over 60% of families live paycheck to paycheck and accumulate debt to make ends meet. Worre still, this is happening as credit card interest rates hit record highs – burying families under financing charges that are growing faster than many can afford to pay.

All this is a consequence of 40-year-high inflation, brought on by the government’s spending, borrowing and printing too much money. Yellen played a key role in all three steps, both through advocacy and actual implementation.

During the Obama administration, Yellen had no problem participating in this downward spiral of federal finance. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and then chair of the Federal Reserve, she advocated for artificially low interest rates and excessive government spending.

And despite speaking up during the Trump administration about the unsustainability of government spending, the first second she was Treasury secretary in the Biden administration and had a public platform, she changed her tune and again advocated for unprecedentedly large federal budgets.

While inflation was destroying American’s livelihoods, Yellen assured the public throughout 2021 that it was only ‘transitory,’ which of course wasn’t true. But that didn’t stop inflation from robbing people of their earnings and savings.

Many hardworking Americans who were hoping to retire, for instance, have been forced to delay their retirement for years while they struggle to save enough to cover the higher cost of living under Bidenomics.

The children of those would-be retirees are also struggling. With inflation-adjusted weekly earnings dropping almost 5% under the Biden administration and interest rates rising at the fastest pace in decades, young families have seen borrowing costs increase dramatically. 

For example, the monthly mortgage payment on a median price home is now more than twice what it was when President Biden took office. That means effectively paying an extra $13,000 per year for the same house than you would have just a few years ago.

And that means families are increasingly having to rent. While Yellen and her husband enjoy their $4.3 million real estate portfolio, most folks can no longer afford the American dream of homeownership. Unfortunately, this increased demand has driven rents to new record highs.

Yet, even as the middle class are clearly being crushed, Yellen continues advocating for more taxes and spending, burdensome financial regulations, and the constant printing of money to pay for it all. She promotes, in other words, the burgeoning federal budget at the expense of the family budget, and still has the gall to say that ‘everything is fine.’

Perhaps that’s because she and the rest of the ruling class are doing just fine themselves. But ‘let them eat cake’ is no answer for a hungry people. And no amount of decadence and ignorance will change the fact that the engine of the American economy is the middle class. When it stalls out, Yellen’s condescending world view will be exposed for the sham it is.

E. J. Antoni is a public finance economist at The Heritage Foundation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Chinese President Xi Jinping in a rare meeting Monday that he was ‘very disappointed’ that China failed to condemn the deadly Hamas attack on Israel, as China says that its relationship with the U.S. ‘will determine the future of humanity.’

Schumer, D-N.Y., led a delegation of three Democrat and three Republican senators in U.S. lawmakers’ first visit to Beijing since 2019.

‘The China-U.S. relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world,’ a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday in a post on X, along with a photo of Schumer and Xi shaking hands. ‘How China and the U.S. get along will determine the future of humanity.’

In remarks to Xi, Schumer criticized China for failing to ‘condemn these cowardly and vicious attacks’ after Hamas killed hundreds of Israelis in an unprecedented surprise attack on Saturday, and urged Beijing to stand with Israel.

‘I was very disappointed to be honest by the Foreign Ministry statement that showed no sympathy or support for Israel during these troubled times,’ Schumer said.

A separate Chinese Foreign Ministry statement on Sunday made no mention of the Hamas attack that so far has left more than 1,100 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.

Instead, the statement called on both sides to exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities and said that establishing an independent state of Palestine is the fundamental way to resolve the issue.

‘The recurrence of the conflict shows once again that the protracted standstill of the peace process cannot go on,’ the statement said.

On Monday, Israeli soldiers were still fighting the terrorist organization to secure the border with Gaza.

Schumer said that the top priority for the Senate delegation is seeking fair trade between the U.S. and China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson also posted on X about the importance of U.S.-China relations to the rest of the world. 

‘As two major countries, China and the U.S. should demonstrate the broadmindedness, vision and readiness to rise to the occasion expected by the international community and act with a sense of responsibility to history, to the people and to the world,’ the post read.

U.S. and Chinese lawmakers are trying to arrange a meeting between Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping during a regional summit in San Francisco next month in a bid to manage the increasingly fraught relationship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.